Public Policy

  • March 22, 2024

    Push For Camp Lejeune Jury Trials Seen As Long Shot

    The legal strategy to secure jury trials in the massive Camp Lejeune water contamination case hangs on a single phrase in a special law stating "nothing" shall impair such trials, but the plaintiffs' gambit is a long shot because Congress didn't go far enough in creating a framework for such trials against the government.

  • March 22, 2024

    US Antitrust Enforcers Keep Big Tech Cases Coming

    A backlash against powerful tech companies is reaching a fever pitch in the U.S., as enforcers with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission now have pending lawsuits accusing Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta of monopolizing key digital markets.

  • March 22, 2024

    Fla. Judge Allows Sale Of Ex-MLBer's House In Fraud Suit

    A Florida state court judge on Friday allowed the sale of a house owned by ex-Boston Red Sox outfielder Rusney Castillo to go forward over the objection of a sports managing company, which accused the baseball player of fraudulent transfer in order to avoid a $3 million judgment against him.

  • March 22, 2024

    Senators Call On White House To Declassify TikTok Info

    A pair of U.S. senators is calling on the Biden administration to declassify information from TikTok and its owner ByteDance, citing national security concerns.

  • March 22, 2024

    High Court Mifepristone Battle Goes Beyond Abortion

    The first major abortion battle to reach the U.S. Supreme Court since the Dobbs decision is about a lot more than abortion.

  • March 22, 2024

    Pot Co. Investor Gets Colo. Contract Breach Suit Revived

    A Colorado appeals court has revived an investor's suit alleging that the head of a six-company cannabis enterprise failed to pay out as agreed, finding the trial court was wrong to find the investor did not have a legally protected interest in the enterprise.

  • March 22, 2024

    Colo. Water District Illegally Doubled Tax Rate, Panel Says

    A water conservancy district violated the Colorado Constitution when it doubled its property tax rate without voter approval, a state appeals court ruled, reversing a lower court's decision against a proposed class of property owners.

  • March 22, 2024

    Colo. Mandates Multistate Online Insurance Tax Filing

    Insurance companies in Colorado will be required to pay certain taxes through multistate third-party web-based application under legislation that Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed into law Friday.

  • March 22, 2024

    Congress Spares Employee Benefits From $400M DOL Cut

    A commitment from Congress to keep funding level for the U.S. Department of Labor's sub-agency that oversees employee benefits despite a $400 million agency-wide cut was one of the highlights for benefits attorneys in a new fiscal year 2024 spending deal. Here are three takeaways from attorneys on the funding agreement.

  • March 22, 2024

    Microsoft Settles Fired Trans Engineer's Bias Suit

    Microsoft agreed to settle a transgender former software engineer's Washington state court suit alleging that she was fired after repeatedly raising concerns that her work was unfairly criticized by her colleagues and that she was subjected to bullying due to her gender presentation.

  • March 22, 2024

    GOP States Can't Step Into Asylum Limits Suit, DC Judge Told

    The Biden administration and a group of asylum-seekers say Republican-led states can't intervene in their attempts to settle a lawsuit challenging asylum limits, with both parties saying the states had admitted that the administration adequately represented their interests.

  • March 22, 2024

    EU Pushes For Steep Tariffs On Russian And Belarusian Grain

    The European Commission said Friday that it's working to constrain Russia's ability to fund its war against Ukraine by increasing tariffs on cereal, oil seed and grain product imports from Russia and its Union State partner, Belarus.

  • March 22, 2024

    Calif. Releases Interim Guidlines On GenAI Use

    The state of California on Thursday released interim guidelines for public-sector procurement, uses and training of generative artificial intelligence by state leaders in preparation for all state agencies to consider pilot projects using the technology by July, per Gov. Gavin Newsom's executive order issued last year.

  • March 22, 2024

    Trump Election Case Gives Young Ga. Judge 'A World Stage'

    As Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee prepares for perhaps the highest profile case he will ever see, legal experts and former state justices told Law360 that the young jurist has the ethics and temperament to not let the politically charged Donald Trump prosecution derail a promising legal career.

  • March 22, 2024

    Cuomo Sister May Sit For Retaliation Claim Depo, Judge Says

    A Manhattan federal judge provisionally held Friday that Madeline Cuomo, the sister of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, should sit for a deposition to address claims that she facilitated an effort to retaliate against a woman who has accused the former governor of harassment.

  • March 22, 2024

    Commerce Lifts Block On Transnational Subsidy Probes

    The U.S. Department of Commerce erased a nearly 40-year-old regulation on Friday so it can impose countervailing duties on subsidies China provides its trade partners, despite opposition from foreign governments that the move would conflict with World Trade Organization obligations.

  • March 22, 2024

    Colo. Foreign Students Not Residents, Tax Dept. Says

    A foreign student, intern or trainee temporarily in Colorado would not be considered domiciled in Colorado under the state's six-month rule and would not need to pay the state's income tax, the state tax department said.

  • March 22, 2024

    DOJ Atty And Magistrate Judge Secure Texas Court Seats

    The Senate voted 88-7 on Friday to confirm Ernest Gonzalez, a senior attorney adviser in the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division, Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Section, and then 90-8 to confirm U.S. Magistrate Judge Leon Schydlower both to the Western District of Texas.

  • March 21, 2024

    Tennessee Adopts Landmark Law To Protect Artists Against AI

    Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed into law Thursday a first-of-its-kind legislation intended to tackle misuse of artificial intelligence by modifying a state law banning unauthorized copies of artists' works to cover musicians, their voices and their songs.

  • March 21, 2024

    Nexstar Ducks Antitrust Suit Over Retransmission Fees

    DirecTV says it refused to ink retransmission deals with two companies that were illegally collaborating with Nexstar Media Group Inc. to fix prices, resulting in massive channel blackouts and customer loss, but according to a New York federal judge, that refusal is why its antitrust claims fall flat.

  • March 21, 2024

    Wisconsin Gov. Signs Earned Wage Access Bill Into Law

    Wisconsin on Thursday solidified a licensing framework for so-called earned wage access services when Gov. Tony Evers signed a state law regulating the cash-advance products.

  • March 21, 2024

    FCC Chief Aiming To Restart $9B Rural 5G Fund

    The Federal Communications Commission is ready to get a move on with relaunching the $9 billion 5G Fund for Rural America, proposing an order that would do just that while tweaking some of the program's rules along the way.

  • March 21, 2024

    Schumer Urges Texas District To Adopt Judge-Shopping Rule

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday urged the chief judge of the Northern District of Texas to quickly implement the Judicial Conference of the United States' updated policy that looks to prevent litigants from judge shopping, arguing that the district's current practices are "dangerous."

  • March 21, 2024

    10th Circ. Doubts Officers Can Get Redo In Training Attack

    A Tenth Circuit panel was skeptical Thursday that tactical officers at a Colorado supermax prison can challenge a trial court's decision not to hold an evidentiary hearing in a suit about a training exercise that turned violent, with one judge noting that the officers did not object at the time.

  • March 21, 2024

    CFPB Wants Late-Fee Suit In DC As Judge Notes Busy Docket

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday asked a Texas federal judge to move a challenge to its new credit card late-fee rule to a Washington, D.C., federal court, a day after the court denied a bid for an immediate injunction brought by a trade group coalition suing to overturn the rule.

Expert Analysis

  • Cos. Must Know How NY, Federal LLC Disclosure Laws Differ

    Author Photo

    Though New York state's new LLC Transparency Act and the federal Corporate Transparency Act impose similar beneficial owner reporting obligations on limited liability companies, New York LLCs should study the important differences between the laws to ensure they are prepared to comply with both, say Abram Ellis, Olenka Burghardt and Jane Jho at Simpson Thacher.

  • Opinion

    Biden Admin's March-In Plan Would Hurt Medical Innovation

    Author Photo

    The Biden administration's proposal to reinterpret the Bayh-Dole Act and allow the government to claw back patents when it determines that a commercialized product's price is too high would discourage private investment in important research and development, says Ken Thorpe at the Rollins School of Public Health.

  • More Than Drugs At Stake In High Court's 'Blind Mule' Case

    Author Photo

    The U.S. Supreme Court's eventual decision in Diaz v. U.S., evaluating whether expert witnesses may testify that most defendants caught with drugs at the border know they are transporting drugs, could have implications for prosecuting everything from complex financial crimes to gun and drug cases, says Kenneth Notter at MoloLamken.

  • Why Fla. High Court Adopting Apex Doctrine Is Monumental

    Author Photo

    The Florida Supreme Court recently solidified the apex doctrine in the Sunshine State, an important development that extends the scope of the doctrine in the state to include both corporate and government officials, and formalizes the requirements for a high-level corporate official to challenge a request for a deposition, says Laura Renstrom at Holland & Knight.

  • Why Biz Groups Disagree On Ending Chevron Deference

    Author Photo

    Two amicus briefs filed in advance of last month's U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo highlight contrasting views on whether the doctrine of Chevron deference promotes or undermines the stable regulatory environment that businesses require, say Wyatt Kendall and Sydney Brogden at Morris Manning.

  • US-Chile Tax Treaty May Encourage Cross-Border Investment

    Author Photo

    Provisions in the recently effective U.S.-Chile bilateral income tax treaty should encourage business between the two countries, as they reduce U.S. withholding tax on investment income for Chilean taxpayers, exempt certain U.S. taxpayers from Chilean capital gains tax, and clarify U.S. foreign tax credit rules, say attorneys at Kramer Levin.

  • SEC Regs Give Banks Chance To Step Up Cyber Safety Game

    Author Photo

    Just as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act forced financial institutions to undertake best practices in recordkeeping, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s recently effective cybersecurity regulations stand to similarly drive those same enterprises to seek out and implement best practices in cybersecurity, to everyone's benefit, says James Gerber at SimSpace.

  • A Look Ahead For The Electric Vehicle Charging Industry

    Author Photo

    This will likely be an eventful year for the electric vehicle market as government efforts to accelerate their adoption inevitably clash with backlash from supporters of the petroleum industry, say Rue Phillips at SkillFusion and Enid Joffe at Green Paradigm Consulting.

  • Opinion

    Oregon Law Would Compromise Management Service Orgs

    Author Photo

    If passed, a proposed Oregon law would materially limit physician corporate practice of medicine structures, causing significant disruption to the provision of medicine and hindering professional corporations' ability to focus on the clinical components of their practice, say Christina Bergeron and William Shefelman at Ropes & Gray.

  • A Post-Mortem Analysis Of Stroock's Demise

    Author Photo

    After the dissolution of 147-year-old firm Stroock late last year shook up the legal world, a post-mortem analysis of the data reveals a long list of warning signs preceding the firm’s collapse — and provides some insight into how other firms might avoid the same disastrous fate, says Craig Savitzky at Leopard Solutions.

  • How DOD Can Improve Flexibility Under Proposed Cyber Rule

    Author Photo

    The U.S. Department of Defense should carefully address some of the more nuanced aspects of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program to avoid unintended consequences, specifically the proposal to severely limit contractor use of plans of actions and milestones, say Joshua Duvall at Maynard Nexsen and Sandeep Kathuria at L3Harris Technologies.

  • Reassessing Trade Secrets Amid Proposed Noncompete Ban

    Author Photo

    The Federal Trade Commission's proposed ban on noncompete agreements as well as state bans make it prudent for businesses to reevaluate and reinvigorate approaches to trade secret protection, including knowing what information employees are providing to vendors, and making sure confidentiality agreements are put in place before information is shared, says Rob Jensen at Wolf Greenfield.

  • Predicting DeFi Regulations At Home And Abroad In 2024

    Author Photo

    Though decentralized finance has advocates on both sides of the Atlantic in figures like U.S. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, DeFi in 2024 seems likely to be folded into existing regulatory frameworks in the U.K. and EU, while anti-crypto scrutiny may discourage DeFi’s growth in the U.S., say Daniel Csefalvay and Eric Martin at BCLP.

  • Opinion

    Exxon Court Should Clarify Shareholder Proposal Exclusion

    Author Photo

    ExxonMobil last month took the unusual action of asking a Texas federal judge whether a proposal from climate activists seeking to limit oil and gas sales could be excluded from its 2024 proxy statement, and the court should use this opportunity to reevaluate SEC policy and set clear limits on when shareholder proposals can be included, says Stephen Bainbridge at UCLA School of Law.

  • Mitigating The Risk Of Post-Closing M&A Earnout Disputes

    Author Photo

    Today's uncertain deal environment makes a well-crafted earnout an excellent way for parties to accomplish a desired transaction that would not otherwise occur, but transacting parties also need to take key steps to avoid the risk of post-closing disputes that earnouts can present, say Chad Barton and Claire Lydiard at Holland & Knight.

Want to publish in Law360?


Submit an idea

Have a news tip?


Contact us here
Can't find the article you're looking for? Click here to search the Public Policy archive.
Hello! I'm Law360's automated support bot.

How can I help you today?

For example, you can type:
  • I forgot my password
  • I took a free trial but didn't get a verification email
  • How do I sign up for a newsletter?
Ask a question!